6K NYCHA Residents Without Hot Water In Bed-Stuy, Records Show

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — A massive outage in three Bed-Stuy public housing developments left more than 6,500 NYCHA residents without hot water Tuesday, city records show.

Hot water dried up for 4,065 residents at the Marcy Houses — the 28-building complex bordered by Marcy, Park, Flushing and Nostrand avenues — about 8 a.m. and for 2,521 residents of the Eleanor Roosevelt Houses I and II — on Lewis Avenue between Hart Street and DeKalb — about thirty minutes later, according to NYCHA's outages alert website.

The unplanned outage had not been resolved as of 2 p.m. for Marcy House's 1,717 apartments, Roosevelt I's 763 apartments and Roosevelt II's 342 apartments, records show.

A Marcy Houses management office worker told Patch the boilers were being worked on in three buildings, which is effecting the entire development, and water was expected to turn on by the end of the day.

While one resident told Patch she had been warned the outage would occur, several others said it came as a surprise.

The outages are the latest in a string of service problems — including a Marcy Houses waterfall last month and a two-week water outage at the Brevoort Houses last summer — that have advocates worried about the housing authority's ability to keep tenants warm through winter.

The Legal Aid Society called on the city's public housing authority to prioritize infrastructure maintenance before the beginning on Oct. 1 of heat season, when NYCHA is legally obligated to ensure working heat until May 31.

The New York State Multiple Dwelling Law also requires building owners provide both hot and cold water 24 hours a day.

“With heat season only a week away and cold weather on the horizon, it’s disappointing that thousands of NYCHA residents are dealing with unplanned water outages,” said spokesperson Redmond Haskins.

“The Legal Aid Society calls on the Housing Authority to issue rent abatements for all NYCHA tenants who suffer these outages, many on a regular basis.”

The Legal Aid Society is currently wrapped up in a legal battle against NYCHA after a 2017-2018 cold season left about 320,000 residents without heat during outages that lasted a day on average.

Patch editor Sam Raskin contributed to this report.